Contributors
- Luis Ramón Ramos Espinoza, Chief Information Officer, Suramericana
- Kyle Saverance, Chief Information Officer, Coker College
- Scott Ross, SVP Omni-Channel Technologies, Lowe’s Companies
- Max Min, Director, Waterloo City Centre
- Philip D’Aurelio, Development Solutions Supervisor, City of Hamilton
- Michael Dieckmann, Chief Operating Offier, Florida Virtual Campus
- Joe Evers, Consulting Principal, JcEvers Consulting Corporation
- Ken Piddington, Chief Information Officer, MRE Consulting
- 2 anonymous contributors
- Two of the top three expectations for CIOs are to align to business strategy and to transform business processes.
- IT does not do a good job aligning to business goals, with 47% of business leaders feeling that their goals are unsupported by IT.
- Most IT departments lack the skill to develop a strategic plan for IT: a staggering 84% of IT departments surveyed claim their IT strategies are less than adequate.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Everything IT does should support the business. A list of projects is not a strategic plan. A good strategy clearly links IT initiatives to business goals.
- Business stakeholders cannot translate how IT initiatives will help achieve their objectives. IT needs to provide a concise way for stakeholders to digest how IT initiatives are supporting the organization.
- A well-crafted IT strategy is critical to enhancing business stakeholder satisfaction and building relationships with business stakeholders.
Impact and Result
- Derive the IT strategy based on the business context. Use Info-Tech’s implications framework to discern IT implications from the business context.
- Clearly communicate to business executives how IT will support the organization’s key objectives and initiatives using the Executive Presentation Template.
- Use Info-Tech’s prioritization matrix to help make project decisions in a holistic manner that allows for the selection of the most valuable initiatives to become part of the IT strategic roadmap.
- Demonstrate to business executives and the IT organization how the IT strategy was created using Info-Tech’s IT Strategy Template.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a six call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Identify the target state
Call #1 - Identify the business context status and IT implications.
Call #2 - Create components of the IT target state.
Guided Implementation #2 - Assess the current state
Call #1 - Assess current IT capabilities and budget.
Call #2 - Examine additional factors impacting IT and identify the current IT maturity.
Guided Implementation #3 - Bridge the gap and create the strategy
Call #1 - Assess the gaps between the current and target states.
Call #2 - Work toward IT strategy approval.

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IT Strategy
Develop a data-driven, fit-for-purpose plan with a strong link to execution.
This course makes up part of the Strategy & Governance Certificate.
Course information:
- Title: IT Strategy
- Number of Course Modules: 4
- Estimated Time to Complete: 2-3 hours
- Featured Analysts:
- Andy Liu, Associate Executive Advisor
- David Glazer, Practice Lead, CIO Practice
- Now Playing: Academy: IT Strategy | Executive Brief
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Identify IT Implications and Strategy Scope
The Purpose
- Conduct analysis and facilitate discussions to uncover what business needs mean for IT and, based on the business mandate, set out the IT strategy scope.
Key Benefits Achieved
- An understanding of what business needs mean for IT. Additionally, the IT strategy scope sets out the coverage of the IT strategy.
Activities
Outputs
Review the business context.
- Link between business capabilities/business initiatives and business goals
Review the link between business capabilities/business initiatives and business goals.
- Link between business capabilities/business initiatives and business goals
Identify IT implications from the documented business context.
- Implications on IT from the business context
Group the IT implications into themes from seven perspectives.
- Implications on IT from the business context
Confirm the IT strategy scope.
- IT strategy scope
Module 2: Define the IT Target State
The Purpose
- Define statements, principles, goals, and target-state maturity to get a sense of where IT needs to go. Clearly understand where IT needs to go by defining the target-state IT capabilities.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identifies and documents, at a high level, IT’s target state. Additionally, the list of target-state capabilities defines in more detail and clarity how the target state will look.
Activities
Outputs
Create the IT vision and mission statements and identify IT guiding principles.
- IT vision statement
- IT mission statement
- IT guiding principles
Define IT goals.
- IT goals
Determine the IT goal alignment to business goals.
Indicate the target-state IT maturity.
Identify target-state IT capabilities.
- Target-state IT capabilities
Consolidate target IT capability map.
- Target-state IT capabilities
Module 3: Assess the IT Current State
The Purpose
- Gauge where the IT organization currently stands to get a baseline so that gaps can be identified between the current and target states.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Provides an assessment of the current state in terms of capabilities, planned initiatives, factors impacting IT, budget, and current-state maturity.
Activities
Outputs
Review diagnostic results.
- Documented current IT capabilities and the gap to the target state
Assess current IT capabilities.
- Documented current IT capabilities and the gap to the target state
Review current IT budget.
Conduct IT SWOT analysis.
- IT SWOT analysis
Identify current-state maturity.
Assess the gaps between current- and target-state capabilities.
- Overall IT capabilities gap analysis
Module 4: Bridge the Gap and Create the Strategy
The Purpose
- Identify the gaps between the current and target states and brainstorm initiatives to address the gaps. Set out next steps to reach IT strategy approval.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identifies the projects needed to reach the target state from the current state.
- Links how the projects support IT capabilities, IT goals, and the business context.
Activities
Outputs
Map key current IT initiatives to IT and business goals.
- Documented relationship between IT goals, capabilities, and initiatives.
Brainstorm initiatives to address the gaps in capabilities.
- List of new initiatives to reach the target state
Create initiative profiles.
- IT initiative profiles
Prioritize IT initiatives.
- IT strategy prioritization matrix
Create roadmaps for key IT initiatives.
- IT strategy roadmaps
Identify required IT budget.
Summarize the highlights of the IT strategy.
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Prince George's Community College
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,562
9
Penn State Health
Workshop
10/10
$900K
65
IT Assist
Guided Implementation
9/10
$3,000
10
College of DuPage
Workshop
9/10
$50,248
32
District Of Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board,The
Guided Implementation
9/10
$6,000
47
Lane Transit District
Workshop
8/10
$5,024
10
Baylor College of Medicine
Workshop
10/10
N/A
1
CLO-OCOL
Workshop
8/10
$23,500
20
City of Kelowna
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
5
CA Dept of Parks and Recreation
Workshop
10/10
$87,934
60
OMV
Guided Implementation
8/10
$2,946
1
City of Birmingham
Guided Implementation
9/10
$1.26M
50
Allegheny County, PA
Guided Implementation
10/10
$62,810
20
Chief Industries, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Aerovironment, Inc.
Workshop
8/10
$12,562
10
The Ottawa Hospital
Workshop
10/10
$100K
20
Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services – Information Management Division (DAS-IMSD)
Workshop
10/10
N/A
N/A
Vancouver Police Department
Workshop
10/10
N/A
20
Montgomery County Board of County Commissioners
Workshop
10/10
$255K
55
Public Utilities Commission of Ohio
Guided Implementation
9/10
$62,810
10
Croix-Rouge de Belgique
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
Yamana Gold
Workshop
10/10
$50,000
10
PharmaLex GmbH
Guided Implementation
8/10
$2,000
5
Turners and Growers
Workshop
9/10
$35,000
20
Fiven
Workshop
10/10
$25,000
50
Lee County Tax Collector
Workshop
9/10
N/A
32
Fusion Superplex
Guided Implementation
10/10
$100K
120
Massey University
Workshop
9/10
$11,305
18
Victoria Police Department
Guided Implementation
9/10
$10,000
50
Solar A/S
Workshop
10/10
$77,789
10